Bend cops have busted the owners of a Galveston Avenue restaurant for selling meth, and neighbors are shocked – shocked! – that such a thing could have happened on the Westside.
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Police arrested brothers Damian and Julian Castaneda-Nino, proprietors of Rigoberto’s Taco Restaurant, on Monday in a raid on their restaurant and home. The cops allegedly confiscated more than five ounces of meth, two ounces of marijuana, about $40,000 in cash and six guns.
In the best American entrepreneurial tradition, the brothers allegedly were selling meth right out of the restaurant’s drive-thru window.
“I’m really shocked that something like that would be in our neighborhoods,” KTVZ quoted one Westside neighbor as saying.
Well, gosh, who wouldn’t be shocked? Swarthy guys with moustaches peddling drugs (and METH, no less – how yucky, how dรฉclassรฉ!) is something that’s simply not supposed to happen on the Westside, where the homes are Craftsman-cute and the residents treat their toned, Spandex-clad bodies as temples. It’s only supposed to happen on the Eastside, where all the ugly shopping centers and crappy apartment complexes are located and the obese denizens pollute their bodies with fast-food burgers and other toxins.
But maybe we shouldn’t be too stunned; it was inevitable that something like this would happen once we let a Safeway and a McDonald’s open on the Westside. What’s next in the process of Westside degradation? People might start leaving their Christmas decorations up until March.
This article appears in Apr 2-8, 2009.
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I’m a westie. Our holiday decorations are supposed to come down already?
This is no suprise. There have been drugs on the westside of Bend from the 60’s when college kids rented houses and partied while going to COCC. I do not think this is the first restaurant that fronted for drugs, how about the pizza parlor that is no longer there???
What an arrogant & rude person. Don’t you know that all people are created equal and just because you live on the Westside doesn’t make your snobby ass any better than anyone elses. In fact, you are worse just because you are so ignorant to think that things like this don’t happen all over. It’s your people their servicing! P.S. Spandex went out a long time ago!
The neighbors’ faux-innocent reaction (can they really believe that an immediate neighborhood that includes more than a handful of rundown shacks and a couple of potholed gravel streets doesn’t have some other level of seediness?!?!) was highly amusing.
In all fairness, though, it should be pointed out that two Westside (the bestside!!!) business owners who appeared on camera didn’t seem shocked at all and appeared to be struggling mightily to stifle smirks at the idiocy of their “competitor.” Anyone who’s eaten the crap Rigoberto’s calls (called?) food knows they didn’t make their money from that particular product!
Sorry for all the scare marks. They just seemed to fit.
Take it easy HBM…not everyone is shocked.
Boy…you really need a vacation…you are so grumpy!
although i’m sure many people are shocked, why ? Drugs are everywhere from your rich doctor neighbor who smokes some ganga at night to sleep good, to the local rigi’s bros slingin meth, to those rebellious youngins doin LSD. westside-eastside-southside-northside, ITS EVERYWHERE. Get over it!
Surprise, surprise, we have some Chicano bros selling meth on the Westside. Welcome to the real world “Westies” !! We have a few “diverse Hispanics” dealing drugs in your upper income “hood”, go figure they are here for the American dream, big SUV’S and a credit card at Macy’s!! Get use to it we haven’t seen the last of it here in our fair city. In case no one has noticed we have a LARGE influx of Hispanics in Central Oregon and it is and has been an ongoing problem, drug dealing and busts are going on ALL over Central Oregon with this minority, they aren’t limited to Arizona and Cali. They are being allowed in our country illegally, why wouldn’t they be brazen enough to deal drugs out of a drive through in Bend,OR.!! All I can say is get over it and get used to it, the problem will not go away until our Federal Government takes action on our borders and I don’t look for that to happen anytime soon.
Eastside vs Westside is getting old. Get over it. The working class is everywhere and so are the so-called Cali-elites.
The food they served wasn’t great–but it was authentic. Mexican ‘comida para llevar’ is greasy, simple, spicy and salty and buying it from the vendors in Mexico always involves a certain amount of risk. Usually, that risk doesn’t involve a drug bust, however.
Too bad the news media focused on the LOCATION and RACE rather than the fact that the drug sellers are everywhere pushing this crap and most of us are unaware or uncaring. Posters concerning this on other sites state that they were aware of what was going on for a long time. Why was nothing said or done? Is it just accepted behavior now?
By the way, I see less Spandex and more flannel on the Westside every day!!
Tamara: The post was written ironically. I live on the Eastside myself and have always been amused at the pretensions of the Westies.
csante: Are you trying to say we never had a drug problem in this country until we let the Mexicans in?
HBM: Yes we have always had a drug problem in Bend before we let the Mexicans in, my point is now we have a bigger problem with the lax attitude about protecting our borders. I am not a Hispanic bigot, IF they are in our country legally and are honest citizens. Unfortunately we have an epidemic of illegal aliens in the form of the รข Mexican drug cartelรข ย in Bend committing crimes involving drugs. They by far out number the small time operations in the past and are more dangerous. It has become big business and they have set up shop in our town and not one neighborhood in Bend is exempt from these criminals.
I ate at Rigoberto’s once. I percolated for about 8 hours afterward.
I thank the CODE team of Bend for busting these drug dealers. I have the uttermost respect for the men and women who are fighting this war as it is turned into war fare. It is like the legend of Hydra, cut off one head and two reappear. The drug epidemic has been present for years in Bend. The myth is those who use their respectable cocaine and smoke their high class pot are of better social circles and are not robbing little old ladies for their pension checks and do not break into cars and homes to support their respectable habits and are not a menace to society like these two hispanic taco slingers. This could not be further from the truth. There is no such thing as respectable drugs and It irritates me that a major drug bust a year ago, the son of one of Bend’s high class citizens who owns one of the biggest and most prominent real estate agencies was not published in the local paper as to not lose ad dollars. The kid walked on his charges and spent a couple of hours in jail before the parent bailed this kid out of jail. When there are no consequences for the rich and famous and drugs are glorified as some ‘youthful indiscretion” then we are condoning drug use for those with money and power and brutally attacking people who are of lesser means and or different races. Building bigger walls around our borders will do nothing. Meth is cooked in bathtubs all over the USA, as well as in our small community along with pot growers who grow in fields to garages to warehouses. Cocaine is brought in by as many white Americans as by the Mexican Cartels.
The solution to our epidemic is to educate people, have the consequences be equal for everyone. A few months ago I left a party at a prominent home in Bend, one of the most luxurious homes in Bend where doctors, business people, lawyers as well as some of the richest people in this city where snorting their “respectable cocaine” popping pain pills, smoking high grade pot and drinking bottles of wine which were over hundred dollars a bottle and it did not seem to be bother anyone the blatant and open use of drugs and debauchery. It was viewed as “letting off some steam” ” having a good time” and rather as some naughty innocent use of illegal drugs. I wonder how they would feel having their pictures posted in the paper in some jail jump suits? How innocent would it then be? The attitude of being immune from the laws due to wealth is why drugs are still an epidemic. The war on drugs has to start with us as individuals. Start reporting any and all suspicious activites you suspect have to do with drug manufacturing/growing/sales and the Mexican cartels will not have a market to sell in as no one will be buying drugs. The same goes for the local dope growers and meth cooks.
Rigobertos is just one of hundreds of examples of drug dealers being busted in our community. However they were given a lot of publicity due to their race and it insults the law enforcement community as the real big fish, the rich and famous who are busted have no publicity.
The rich and famous hide behind the myth of not being addicts as they are not stealing from anyone, not living in their cars, support their kids and familes and have all of their needs and wants taken care of.
The war on drugs is all politics. Take the example of our late Gordon Smith, our state senator who was percieved by his voters as being against illegal aliens being allowed to work in the USA, but yet half of his employees at his frozen food factory in Hermiston Oregon employs over 50% of the workers as illegals with no green cards, paid in cash. This example has nothing to do with drugs, but it identical to the politics of drugs, It is hypocracy in the solutions being different based on class, money and power.
Can the city build a fence to keep people from the eastside out of my neighborhood?
“Can the city build a fence … ?”
WestBender: Why wait for the city? Let’s build it ourselves, and then set up a border patrol! I’ll drive, you stand in the back of my truck with an air rifle!! (I’ll add a roll bar so you can hang on while I take the roundabouts.)
Olde Tymer: If all you’ve got is an air rifle you’re gonna be in deep doo-doo — us Easties have you badly outgunned.
HBM: “… us Easties have you badly outgunned.”
Ah, but isn’t Eastie skin so thin that the air gun is sufficient? Besides, the real damage won’t be from any weaponry — it’ll be from when we run y’all down in the crosswalks ’cause we’re talking on cell phones and drinking coffee while driving.
Every “straight” person in the whole damned country is stoned 24/7 outa their brains on Ambein, Prosaic, Viagra and panty shots on CNN/Fox TV, so what’s the big deal? There’s a recession on, fergoodnesssakes.
Is meth that bad out there?!? I live in (dare I say?!) Southern California, and my husband and I were planning on moving up there next year with our daughter. The whole purpose of which is to avoid 1. the illegals 2. the superficial ppl 3. gangs and drugs 4. we want a safer place to raise our 2 year old, and Bend seemed perfect. Then I hear all this crap about meth being HUGE out there, and it really worries me, I lost my mother to her meth addiction, I would hate to one day lose my daughter too! I dunno. I am trying to dive deeper into searching but figured I would ask some people as well! Have an awesome day everyone!
Drugs may be bad out here but if you keep yourself away like i do it’s not a problem. keep yourself and child involved in activities such as sports and church. and about “illegals” please it’s not like they gonna kill you. they are nice if you get to know them, of course they are humans just like you. and of course i’m pretty sure that your an illegal too. track back your history idiot. You sound racist and maybe that kinda people we don’t need in Oregon.
Nothing new here, this happens everywhere, Bend is small so everything gets blown out of proportion. If you lived in Portland, Eugene, Seattle, wherever this would have made the news, and be forgotten about the next day, here we talk about some drug bust for weeks….c’mon..
Drugs are everywhere. Weather it be your 4.00 dollar coffee with a tripple shot of espresso, cigs, weed, or alcohol. Its all the same and there is always going to be a market for any of these types of unnecessary goods, but we still all use them.
and the west/east comments…
I have lived on the westside, and the eastside. Ill tell you what, it may not be as “CHILL” on the eastside, but my rent is way cheaper, my house is 10 times nicer, and my utility bills are cut in almost half. So if your so set on your west side house so be it. I would rather pay less money and have nicer house, rather than be concerned with my west side status. Talking that way takes you far away from the ideal west sider. Bend is all about meeting new people and learning new things….go clam up in your hole and stay on the west side!
que bueno